But this was not so in Robbie’s world. Here books were precious, even though the printing press had made available millions of books by the time he had been born those books were not available to all. Illiteracy was still the norm and the cost of books were prohibitive. Books were of the dominion of the rich and the learned. Those poor and illiterate that did find access to books most likely carved shoe soles from the binding and burnt the pages to warm themselves. Having been to university he would be familiar with the importance of books and may have accumulated a number of books himself. But probably not hundreds.
Robbie turned the blank page and his eyes widened. He had seen much great art in Edinburgh, portraits and landscapes painted in bright oils, masterpieces of man’s ability to copy his environment and to create an eternal image that would outlast an individual’s lifetime. He had always been impressed with the ability of men to duplicate likenesses and thought that at some point in his life he would have his own likeness duplicated. But in this odd little book Robbie was looking at a picture drawn with the graphite tool that was far beyond the measure of any portrait he had ever seen. It was so lifelike that Robbie held his breath. Drawn in great detail was an old man, with a hat like Stella’s. He was dressed in the same type of tunic as Stella, although his was striped, the folds shown true to form, seeming to be real, three-dimensional in their accuracy. Robbie gingerly touched the page expecting to feel the cloth, but it was flat.
“Stella,” he whispered. “you did this? With your pencil?”
“Yes,” she said shyly, “they’re just sketches. I’ll use them at some point and paint them onto canvas. I do a lot of sketching wherever I go.”
“This is a masterpiece, Stella. No artist in Scotland or England can match this.” Robbie began to leaf slowly through the book looking at the collection of saddles, fences, cows, horses, boots and more people, all dressed in their strange Texas clothing.
“Robbie, I have superior materials. My pencils and oils, my training, all the artistic tools I own are so much better than what’s available to your artists here. If they had those tools they would be able to do this. I am not even the best, Robbie. There are others whose work is so precise that it looks like a pho….um, it looks real, lifelike. You would be shocked.” Stella wished she could explain photo-realism to Robbie, but she didn’t think he was ready yet…and might never be.
Robbie knew that he held a true treasure in his hand. This simple book, so coarse in its appearance held ‘treasures’ of art that would shame even the greatest artists of his time. It was worth a king’s ransom. He worried that when he married Stella, and he was determined he would, how he would provide her with pencils. Could she do this in ink? Surely an artist as talented as her could use ink as well as pencil.
Stella took the book from Robbie and turned to the first page. She always left the first page blank to write in identifying times, places, dates and so forth. Today it would serve a greater purpose. She gave the pencil to Robbie.
“Here, Robbie. Write your name,” she handed the book back to him. Robbie set the book on his lap and rolling the pencil between his fingers, getting the feel of the slender wood, he moved it around, his hand becoming familiar with its length and weight. He placed the point to the page and wrote. She noted that he wrote with ease, not halting or clenching the pencil, but moving smoothly across the page with a practiced elegance.
“This pencil is a fine instrument, Stella. I like it very much.” He handed the book back to Stella. Stella was thrilled to have Robbie’s name in her book. She remembered back to her high school yearbook and all the signatures she had collected of all her friends. At first glance it looked illegible, but her father had taught her how to read the script of old documents and she read it out loud slowly.
“I, Robert MacDougall, set my hand to this book of treasures on this the fourteenth day of July in the year of our Lord 1604.” Stella smiled and touched the page. His writing was strong, with the proscribed flourishes of his time. Beautiful, well formed and masculine. This would be her most valuable possession when she got home. At once she had a tingling of regret at having to leave Robbie. She was beginning to feel a significant connection and was feeling some reluctance to letting go.
“You will draw the croft now?” asked Robbie. He was anxious to see her at work. Stella looked at him in the soft light of the candle, his face so eager to see more of what was new to him. He truly did have a scientific bent of mind. She thought that if he had been born during her time he might have been an engineer, or a physicist, certainly a mathematician of some note. She was once again overwhelmed by his masculinity. His strength pulsed through the air and she was captured by it, felt her feminine self respond to him. She drew a deep breath.
“Yes, I’m going to draw the croft,” she opened up the book to a fresh page and began to swiftly lay in the lines of the croft. She drew it from the point of view of walking into from the door so that she might get in as much of the area as possible. Robbie watched with fascination as she guided her pencil across the page, knowing without hesitation where each line, each mark, belonged. He was intrigued that she did not miss any of the details, each small feature of the farmer’s croft rendered in exactness, small things that he had not noticed while he was there. He had not noted the farmer’s boots lying next to the hearth or the wife’s sewing basket of yarns next to her chair. How had he missed the large grey cat in the corner or the empty cradle near the butter churn.
Ferghus, returning from his trip to find dinner, had the remains of a hare in his mouth, two long ears and half a head with what Stella thought was brain parts dangling from a crushed skull. Ferghus stretched out next to Robbie and dropped his bounty, sniffing it and placing his paw on top, to establish ownership. Stella looked at the rabbit ears and winced.
“Och, Ferghus, yer a fine lad and ‘tis a fine meal ye’ve brought me.” Robbie laughed. He picked up the rabbit ears and offered it to Stella. “Are ye hungry, lass? Ferghus has saved some of his meal t’ share with us and it looks tasty. What say ye?,” Robbie looked serious as he offered her the remains. Stella looked at him, horrified. She could only stare at it, leaning away from the nastiness, thinking that in spite of his scientific mind Robbie was still somewhat barbarian.
Robbie proffered it again delighting in her look of horror and curled lips. “If ye nay want it then I’ll finish it meself, lass.” Stella looked at him and saw that his eyes were twinkling. He was teasing her. She exhaled and smiled, accepting his good humor and happy that he felt at ease having a joke on her.
“No thank, you Robbie, I’m full. But you go ahead and enjoy!” she smiled brightly and inclined her head indicating the wretched piece of hare. Ferghus whined to have the thing back.
There was a pleased friendliness to Robbie’s smile, as if crossing the line from formality to the intimacy of a casual tease had been a natural occurrence, not a calculated risk. He had reached across a divide and found her willing to let him cross.
Stella yawned as she finished up her sketching and Robbie, having given the ears back to Ferghus, took the book from her delighting in the picture. He once again thumbed through the pages and looked at the details of the other sketches.
“These are all of Tegis?”
“Yes, I did them at a friend’s ranch, um, horse farm. The men you see there are called cowboys.”
“Cowboys,” he repeated the word as if it were a foreign language. “What do they do, these cowboys?”
Stella thought for a moment about what a cowboy did and how it would relate to Robbie’s world.
“Well, they are a combination of hostler and shepherd. They tend the horses and all the cows.” Robbie looked at the picture of one of the cowboys putting a halter on a horse. He noted a few cows in the background.
“How many cows does he shepherd?” Robbie couldn’t imagine why a grown man would manage cows when in Scotland a young boy or girl was all that was needed to tend a cow.
“Well, I think there at the
Three Bar S ranch, um, horse farm, they have about five thousand head of cattle – or cows.” Stella had gotten up and was looking for her socks. The temperature was dropping and she was barefoot and she so hated being barefoot.
Robbie looked at her dumbfounded. “Tegis has five thousand cows?” Robbie was beginning to wonder if Tegis was not the most astounding place on the globe.
“Oh, heavens no, Robbie. The Three Bar S farm has five thousand. In the whole of Texas there is probably a million cows.”
“Now you jest with me, lass.” Stella pulled on her socks and looked at Robbie’s serious face. Gone was the teasing smile. He got up and went to close the barn door.
“Ok, only a half million.” She smiled, reached for her sketch book and put it, along with her pencil, in her backpack. She surreptitiously unwrapped a granola bar. She wanted to share a bit of sweetness with him before they settled in for the night.
“Stella, how big is this Tegis?” Stella stopped for a moment and tried to figure out a relative comparison.
“It’s big, Robbie. All of Texas is probably two and a half or three times as large as all of England, Ireland, Wales and Scotland put together. It’s a very big place.” Robbie seemed very thoughtful as he closed the barn door and moved the lantern toward the stall farthest from the door where he had spread his plaid. Stella slipped the granola bar into the pocket of the dress and noted the light leaving her and going to the back of the barn. She got up and followed him to the last stall.
The noise of livestock settling down for the night brought with it a tenderness to her heart. The horses had all been fed and were quiet, as were the several goats. Thankfully the farmer did not have pigs in the barn, and the chickens were roosting in rafters far enough away they would not be dropping surprises on them all night. As with all barns, it was a warm place, the combination of animals and composting manure and hay delivering enough heat to make the slight chill in the air to be almost unnoticeable.
At once she became aware that she was in a barn alone with this man. He had laid only the one plaid down, which is all he had, but he had made no other apparent provisions for a separate sleeping place for himself. The other stalls were filled with the horses and a cow and any other spot in the barn was target area for chickens. She was tired and the soft plaid covered hay looked inviting. She stared at the plaid unsure of what her next move was to be.
Robbie stood watching her unsure of himself, still filled with the wonder and awe of what he had learned of her and her land tonight. Her book of images was a treasure, but so too was she. He did not want to scare her or cause her discomfort, but he wanted her. His desire for her was beyond any he had ever felt for any women, possession or intellectual objective. His wanting could wait, though, if it meant tying her to him with emotional bonds rather than demands. He knew now that she responded to humor, intelligence and grace. He would not allow lust to cause him to lose her and she had already warned him that she, not he, was in control.
For the first time in her life Stella saw that men were not the enemy. For the first time in his life Robbie saw that women were as he – strong and smart. There is a time when culture and tradition must be cast aside and the true nature of male and female must be taken up and this was that moment.
Her breathing was labored and shallow, she did not know where to turn, she was at an emotional impasse. Her instincts and her knowledge and experience told her that this man would use her and then mistreat her, take her agency to chose and make demands that would embitter her.
He dealt with the difficult decision of commanding and appropriating. But each, in their heart knew that there was something beyond their experience, beyond their knowing, beyond what history and culture had taught, that the heavens, in this moment were opening up the true nature of the union of the male and the female. Stella felt shy and awkward. Robbie was confused and out of his element.
Stella reached into her pocket and offered the granola bar to him. Robbie slowly reached to take it from her, an offering of understanding, of giving, of union. He took it and in doing so touched her hand. Warmth spread from her hand and traveled up his arm to his heart. This small piece of ambrosia, the food of the gods, the sustenance of Venus, was a gift and he would treasure it because it embodied all that she was. Sweet and nourishing and exotic. It was filled with delight and with flavors unknown, but pleasing to him. The flavors of union. And in that moment of touching, the night so absolute in its darkness, was lit with joy and a shy recognition that something beyond the mere attraction of bodies was laid open to them.
Robbie took the bar and snapped it in two.
“We will share, my Faerie Queen.” Softly spoken his words were not about granola bars, but about their bound, a shared venture, an understanding of the importance of mutual consent.
He handed her the half and she took it from him looking at it as communion, and smiled indulgently with no further comments, explanations or apologies – just a smile. As if in that simple smile she was humbling acknowledging her power to answer all unanswerable questions. Her calm reassured him, encouraged him. In spite of her strange words and actions he felt comfortable with her. She challenged his beliefs, but she didn’t challenge his dedication to principle. Passionate. Yes, she was passionate, maybe obsessed, but so was he. He thought about his own passions and found them equal to hers.
He awkwardly reached out his hand. “Lass, again I will sleep at yer feet. Fear me not.”
She nodded, saying nothing, feeling much more than she was willing to acknowledge. She stepped onto the plaid and lay down hoping that sleep would take her quickly, but unsure if she wanted to be released from the thoughts and images of the day
Robbie covered her, hesitating, wanting to kiss her goodnight – a simple kiss, perhaps on the cheek, the forehead – but he held back, his desire burning him, leaving him with a pain unmatched by any battlefield blow. He blew out the candle and Ferghus climbed in beside Stella and she wrapped her arms around him. Robbie lingered a moment longer to watch them both get comfortable and he lay at her feet, finding comfort in laying his hand on her ankles. The trio drifted off into sleep, Stella dreaming of toilet paper and Robbie adrift in dreams of five thousand cows.
Chapter Nine
“Tell me of yer family, Stella.” Robbie had slowed their pace somewhat, for they were in very rocky terrain. Having gotten up early once again, they had left the croft as daylight was breaking over the horizon and moved silently northward. They had shared the crofter’s bread and had spent the first part of the morning moving swiftly into the mountains.
Robbie slowed his horse to be even with Stella
“Well, my mother died when I was only three years old so I don’t remember her much,” said Stella, “but sometimes, I get a vague notion that she is watching me and directing me. I miss her, even though I don’t remember her. When I was about eighteen, I recall I was still in school, I painted a picture of her and I. In the painting I’m just a child, three or so, and we’re walking through a meadow of white flowers, like the white heather I picked for my hat, and she is taking me somewhere. I love that painting. I still have it. Sometimes I look at it and it all seems so real to me, so clear. It makes me cry.”
Robbie looked at Stella in amazement. “You are over eighteen, Stella?”
“I’m twenty three. How old did you think I was?”
“I had guessed yer age to be less than eighteen.”
“Really? Well, that’s very flattering, but I’m a robust twenty three. How old are you?”
“I am thirty and one.”
“Wow, thirty one.” Stella thought for a moment that the 17th century was hard on a body. She would have thought that Robbie was closer to forty one. He already had age lines around his mouth and eyes. Or maybe it was the beard that made him look older, which did not mitigate the attraction she was feeling for him, but it gave her pause to think his life expectancy would not be very long. She knew that during this period that he would be lucky to live to s
ee fifty. Bad diet, poor sanitary conditions and disease took an early toll of these people, not to mention wars. With him being a warrior his chances of long life were slim and none. He was at this moment in the bloom of his life.
“And yer da?” Robbie probed.
“Ah, well now there is a strange and unusual man. My ‘da’, or Daddy, as we say in Texas, is a professor at the university. He has written many books about history and won lots of awards for being smart and clever and he’s been an excellent father to me. He raised me on his own after my mother died and has given me privileges and opportunities that most young people don’t get.”
“What were those privileges?” Intellectual curiosity was not always encouraged in this culture, but Robbie had a healthy dose of it. But she wasn’t certain she felt comfortable sharing with Robbie that the most outstanding privilege was that her father` taught her a great deal about the time in which he was living. He had instructed her in the language of the late Renaissance, how to decipher the writing of the period, a history of the culture and politics, all at a depth of knowledge that many history students never achieved. She had even helped him with reading and deciphering old documents for his research. But with all that he had not prodded her to follow him into the formal study of Renaissance history. He knew her heart was in her art and he encouraged that, even having her paint canvases for him of some of the great buildings and events of the time, using them as plates for his books. Stella truly had the best of both worlds from her father.
Highland Portrait Page 13
